This board is a composition workshop, like a writers' workshop: post your work with questions about style or vocabulary, comment on other people's work, post composition challenges on some topic or form, or just dazzle us with your inventive use of galliambics.

I'm a self-taught Latin teacher at a charter school. Am still learning the basics and could use some help polishing a short Latin composition. (Most of my writing practice has only involved short sentences, and mostly Latin to English, not English to Latin.) The composition is a letter home to parents of my K-4th grade students about using some selections from the audio CD Carmina Popularia, to be in Latin on one side of the page and in English on the other.

Here is the English and the Latin text. Comments to help improve the Latin would be appreciated.

"Dear Elementary Parents:

Greetings from your child’s Latin teacher! Among the best aids to learning a foreign language is music. We have already learned several familiar songs in Latin. Shortly before the Christmas holiday, for instance, we learned several Christmas songs and caroled in Latin in the halls of the elementary building. We also learned the Latin versions of two spirituals recently, “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and “This Little Light of Mine”.

Now we will start learning some additional ones with the aid of a great new Latin audio CD, called Carmina Popularia (Popular Songs). I have made copies of selected songs on a CD so your child can have one to take home and practice with. A copy is with this letter. I encourage you to sing along with your child at home, in the car, or wherever. May you find singing together in Latin to be an enjoyable family activity! I will also be providing copies of the lyrics.

Yes, it would be best to be consistent with macrons. Unfortunately, some of the sources I used don't use macrons (software packages Latin Assistant for Windows and LatinWORDS for Mac, based on Whitaker's WORDS database, as well as the NeoLatin wordlist Adumbratio lexici neo-latini, online at http://facweb.furman.edu/~dmorgan/lexicon/silva.htm). I have only learned the case endings for the 1st and 2nd declensions so far (am working to learn the other declensions), so as yet I don't always know which words would use macrons.

I won't attempt to critique the Latin as I am still a beginner myself (I studied two thirds of D'Ooge and at present I am up to Chapter 20 of Lingua Latina by Ørberg).

One point, though: I think "cum hāc litterā" means "with this letter of the alphabet".

Letter, as in missive, is plural: "litterae" rather than "littera". Or perhaps epistula could be used.

I feel that learning the correct vowel lengths is very important: it often helps place the stress on the correct syllable plus it provides more authentic pronunciation. In particular, note that "Latīna" has a long "i".

I hope this helps.

In order to learn the lengths properly, I am transcribing the whole of the book Lingua Latina. This helps consolidate my learning in general and indeed helps me remember the vowel lengths more reliably.

Could I ask what exactly "charter school" means? I am from the UK (I live in Finland now) and I am not very familiar with the U.S. school system and terminology.

It is very nice to see that at least some schoolchildren still get the chance to study Latin at school. What age groups are your students? (Tell me ages, as I don't know the grade system.)

"cantavimus Latinē aulīs aedificium primum": is there a reason for the acc. here? Perhaps "primorum aedificiorum."

"Etiam versionum Latinē duōrum hymnōrum spiritualium recenter didicimus, “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and “This Little Light of Mine”, id est, “Si Hodie Es Felix” et “Hanc Lucillam Meam”: Is there an object for didicimus? Perhaps "versiones Latine duas hymnorum spiritualium recenter didicimus." Or are the song titles the objects? That might be a little confusing, because it requires you to change the case of the song title, "Haec Lucilla Mea."

"aliquae carmina addititia": "alia" might be a more expected substitute for "addititia."

"Transcrīpsi carmina selecta discō confertō ob fīlium aut fīliam vestra ūnum possint habere domō portare pro exercere." A few issues here. Instead of "ob" the purpose clause here calls for an "ut." A pair of things can be paired with the enclitic "-ve" like "que". Because you're talking about one son or daughter, the verb needs to be singular (possit). To take home just required "domum," which uses the accusative for direction to, like "it Romam." Instead of using "unum" to refer to CD, I am referring to the songs themselves, because I understand that to be the real goal. So I have: "Carmina selecta disco conferto transcripsi ut filius filiave vester ea domum ferre et eis se exercere possit." If you want to keep the CD as object, you could do "... vester eum ferre domum et eo se exercere." I find "se exercere" to have the meaning of "to practice (one's self)."

"Exemplum discī cum hāc litterā est": as noted, use the plural of Littera for "a letter" or epistula.

Thanks so much for your help! Just wanted to let you know I have read your posts and am digesting them. Will be back with you in a day or two, hopefully. In case I forgot to mention it earlier, the first 8 chapters of Wheelock are the only systematic Latin grammar study I've done. That, however, was several years ago, before I started teaching Latin.

Am now in process of reviewing these and plan to go on to finish Wheelock and others as I have time. Have also dipped a little into D'Ooge and am using various web sources such as the St. Louis Univ. site, Vicipaedia, etc.

It's very encouraging to have fellow-teachers/learners who take the time to help a newbie (novus discipulus?) like myself.

Well, it's more like two weeks-sigh. Anyway, the final draft of the letter is finished. Thesaurus, I adopted most of your suggested changes, and will post a copy of the final draft next time. Nov.ialiste, I regret that the macrons had to go because the font I decided on for the letter, Tempus ITC (similar to Papyrus, but wider) does not display them. I could have used Arial or Times New Roman, which do display macrons, but wanted to use something more interesting visually. Thanks for your help, anyway, and I'll save a copy of the text with the macrons for my own study.